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Tendering for the supply of services in both the private and public sectors is fraught with difficulties, and none more so than those with an IT element. Even when the body concerned has a complete grasp of what it wants to achieve, who within their organisations are going to be affected or involved, and a realistic timescale and cost to work with, it has to factor in what can or cannot be achieved by current and future technology and by a fast evolving, and rapidly changing IT environment - and what its aims are likely to be in the longer term.

If you can achieve the above then that's great! But the reality is that plans are always less than perfect, changes have to be made to suit workplace needs and shifting political pressures, and procurement teams come and go, leading to the falling apart of the Project Specification. The frustrated contractor is handed a slew of modifications and adjustments, which, because of their 'immediacy', are likely to be just as ineffective as those elements they are replacing. The contractor has no option other than to load his tender with penalty clauses to cover the cost of extra work, and eventually the project expires under the weight of its own excesses - slain by bad advice and a 'bad spec!'

Hence the development of the cross-government initiative, the G-Cloud Framework, to resolve this issue. G-Cloud is a UK Government programme aimed at encouraging the adoption of cloud-based software services, providing a framework for the procurement and management of IT services. Confirming that the growing importance of cloud-based solutions could point to more efficient methods of coordinating administrative functions between widely located organisations, G-Cloud has been developed to deliver fundamental changes in the way the public sector procures and operates Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

The initiative gives major project management and consulting companies a role as suppliers of such technology, believing that they would foster a more reasoned approach to the problem. G-Cloud suppliers would refine the tendering proposals within the Government departments, using their expertise to define what is achievable within budget, technology and time constraints, acting on behalf of the public client in their negotiations.

4Projects, who were named winners of the Collaboration Product of the Year category for the third year running at the 2013 Construction Computing Awards, have been announced as one of the first G-Cloud suppliers from within the construction industry. 4Projects also won the Product of the Year category at the 2013 Awards.

"We are incredibly excited to have been accepted into the G-Cloud Programme, which will enable 4Projects to provide its leading project and BIM collaboration platform to UK government clients in need of our award winning solutions," commented Matt Harris, senior vice president of strategy and corporate business development. "The construction industry's adoption of our solutions continues to grow rapidly as evidenced by 4Projects' use on recent mega projects such as The Olympic Stadium, the Commonwealth Games and the Changi Airport extension, among others."

G-CLOUD
The G-Cloud framework provides public sector buyers with a framework for buying cloud-based services, such as web hosting, site analytics or document collaboration tools. It includes a specific site, CloudStore, that provides information about SaaS in different market categories, construction being one of them - one which 4Projects is particularly well placed to advise about or provide further information on.

Companies that wish to be included on G-Cloud, or within the CloudStore, have to be accredited and go through a rigorous selection process, starting with the submission of a tender requesting inclusion within the G-Cloud framework. Once accepted, suppliers can list their products on CloudStore. A supplier's contract runs for 12 months, although an updated version of the framework is released every six months, giving suppliers a chance to update their entries. To continue offering services, suppliers must submit a new tender before the completion of the existing term, every year.

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